Rapper Murs Plays Gay In Video For 'Animal Style'

By
On Top Magazine Staff
Published:
July 15, 2012

Rapper Murs plays gay in the video for
the single Animal Style from his studio album Love &
Rockets, Volume 1: The Transformation.

In Animal Style, Murs takes on
the role of Roderick, a closeted high school student in love with
Jonathan, an openly gay classmate.

“Boyfriend Roderick kept his secret
closeted; Scared to come out into this world of zero tolerance,”
Murs raps. “Wanted Roderick to follow him; He see him in the halls
but Rod would never acknowledge him.”

While playing himself in the video,
Murs is seen wearing a t-shirt captioned with Legalize Gay.

Roderick and Jonathan are seen holding
hands and sharing a kiss in a park before Roderick's fear of being
discovered drives a wedge between the pair. In the video's final
frames, Roderick decides it's all just too much for both of them.

“With this one I wanted to challenge
the listener to ask themselves: Is the love shared by two people of
the same gender, really that different than the love I have for my
partner of the opposite sex?" Murs wrote on YouTube. “And
finally, I just felt it was crucial for some of us in the hip hop
community to speak up on the issues of teen suicide, bullying, and
the overall anti-homosexual sentiment that exist within hip hop
culture. I felt so strongly about these issues and this song that I
had to do a video that would command some attention, even if it makes
some viewers uncomfortable. Even if it came at the cost of my own
comfort.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.
Visit
our video library for more videos.)